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A Bunch of Books.

While I’m not a big fan of traditional fantasy with elves, dwarves and dragons in litterature (or perhaps I’ve just not found a book within the genre that I really like, yet) I do like fiction, and amazing stories based on true events, of course. I thought I would share some of them with you so that you can read them yourselves, I have a neat little pile of them on my lap and their backs are mainly black, green or brown, with white or golded titles. And they’re piling up so that I can hardly see my computer screen, much less my keyboard.

Anyways, I suppose we should get on with it?

The Meaning of Night (Mörkrets Väg) – When Michael Cox got cancer that threatened his vision he decided to finally write this book he had been planning for more thant 30 years, in January 2005 he became a millionaire as his book was auctioned between english publishing houses. This does not surprise me, The Meaning of Night is a great book, they say it’s like Dickens, but more of a punch. I bought this book in swedish while I was spending a few, I think it was two, weeks on Gotland, and while I had a lot to do the entire time, I couldn’t stop reading this book. The first sentence of the whole thing is; “After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.”
The fact that this book takes place during the 1850’s is obvious, and all the places in the book, more or less, are actual businesses and pubs in London during this time. To keep it short, this book is about a man who found out a great truth, had it stolen from him, and fights to take it all back. It trapped my nose completely by the pages.

This is a totally unrelated photo of my friend Madeleine taken by me, for the moment I shall call it intermission. Since it's totally unrelated and just here to keep your attention.

Reaper Man – Terry Pratchett, wrote this book. Terry Pratchett wrote a great book.
I actually don’t know the swedish title of this book, as I first came across it in english class in school. I don’t remember why I was supposed to read it, but I did, and school has actually brought me many good books I keep in my bookshelf today, well, after going to buy them. It proved to be great, it’s exciting and funny, and I have since bought another one of Terry Pratchett’s books, called Lords and Ladies, which I got for christmas and have yet to read. I believe it is a Discworld novel, just like Reaper Man. The Discworld, for those who don’t know, is a flat world balanced on the back of four elephants, which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle.
It’s comedy fantasy I suppose. I don’t really think I need to tell you much about this book, except;
What would happen if Death, the Grim Reaper, took vacation?

Crime and Punishment (Brott och Straff) – Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I have actually not met that many others who like this book, even less so people my age, but once again, it was brought to me by school, and I happened to like it. During the time I read this book we were in the middle of setting up a play for school, called “Glasblåsarns Barn” or “The Glassblower’s Children”, for those of you familiar with this story, I was playing the Lord in our little play, which is really beyond the point. The point is, that as soon as I weren’t on stage I was reading this book, standing behind the stage. Of course my fellow actresses thought I wasn’t paying attention, but I very much were, since I apparently have the talent of reading something and paying attention at the same time. I wasn’t late out on stage a single time, but put my bookmark in and put the book aside, and went out into the lights to do what I was supposed to.
Anyways, going back to the book; In Crime and Punishment we get to follow Rodion Raskolnikov, a poor student who owes some people some money and lives in a shoe-box of an apartment. One day, however he decides to kill a pawnbroker, and then…?

This is mine, at the moment of snapping this photo a string was missing. Artsy intermission!

The Book Thief (Boktjuven) – Markus Zusak lives in Sydney, and grew up around stories from World War 2, and he knew from the beginning that this was a story he wanted to write. I only recently read this book, and I loved it. We may read books like Anne Frank’s Diary, and other stories from the death camps, but The Book Thief brings us a story where not all germans are brainwashed by Hitler’s rabid shouting, and has us meet children and adults not following the rules, hiding jews and of course, specific for the little girl called Liesel; stealing books.
It’s very poetic, and very beautiful, and I was up until 4:30 am finishing the last of the book (And then I couldn’t sleep intol 6 am, but that’s not relevant), and the night before that I was up to roughly the same time and couldn’t put the book down. I needed to know what happened. I warmly recommend this book to anyone, even if you think school has educated you enough on World War 2 and the holocaust, this book will bring you to a new, poetic, sordid, happy and beautiful story. (I actually retold most of the book to my mother and said that if I had the chance to make a film, or a play, I would definately pick this story. Only to see that it’s already being made into a film though! Which is great and bad!

I have four more books I thought I’d share with you, but maybe I should save them for another time? You’re already a champ for having the attention span to read this far, so I suppose you should either tell me how much you want to know the titles of the other four books, or simply wait for a post titled supposedly; “Another bunch of books.”

Have fun anyhow, have a great time reading, or share your thoughts if you already did!
Or recommend me some of your favourite reads!